I recently finished a book called Beautiful Outlaw by John Eldredge, which dives into the personality of Jesus in the Gospels. While I enjoyed reading it, most of it did not connect with me until the last few chapters, where he talked about finding life in Jesus. We are always trying to find life in things that aren’t Jesus, and while we all have a natural instinct to surrender, we often surrender to the wrong things. We forget that God, and God alone, gives us life. So this week, I thought I would share a few of the quotes from the book that resonated with me. The first one talks about how our self-determination, or our desire to do things on our own, gets in the way of finding life in Jesus:
"If you are not drawing your life from Jesus, it means you are trying to draw it from another source. I'll guarantee you that it's not working. Jesus was simply stating a fact when he said, 'Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.' Grab for life and it falls through your fingers like sand; give your life away to God, and you will be a person his life can fill. If you want the real deal, if you want to experience the lush, generous, unquenchable, unstoppable life of Jesus in you and through you, then surrender your self-determination."
I’m not sure about you, but I’ve often had difficulty in surrendering my self-determination. It always seems like it’s easier to fight on your own, put your head down and keep grinding. But that spirit and attitude keeps us from finding life in Jesus. The reason is because part of what it means to find life in Jesus is to let him invade every single part of you:
"Jesus has no intention of letting you become whole apart from his moment-to-moment presence and life within you. Your brokenness and your sin are not something you can overcome so that you can walk with God. They are occasions for you to cry out for the life of God in you to rescue you. Not God outside you, up in the sky somewhere. Christ in you, your only hope of glory."
That one really hit me too. God wants us to experience Him up close, even with every broken sin and insecurity. Rearrange the pronouns and it’s even more powerful: Jesus wants to walk with me, even with all my brokenness. He wants to know me, love me, and live in me. Does it feel weird saying that? It might, but think about the garden of Eden, how he walked alongside Adam and Eve each day, living with them. We were made to walk with God.
"we must give our lives over to him in order to receive his life. Not just once, but as a regular practice... We find those practices that help us receive the life of God. Whether it be prayer, worship, silence, sacrament, or the gift of sunshine, sitting beside a stream, music adventure - we seek out those things that help us to receive the life of God."
How do we walk with God? Well, one simple step is to identify where we experience life with him. We all have different ways of loving God, so it’s our job to shine a light on the moments we experience him and do them regularly. For me, it’s things like being in nature, going on long morning runs, listening to music, or writing. If you haven’t found what those are for you, take some time to do so, and keep doing them.
I hope this was helpful – that through these scattered thoughts one of the quotes resonated with you like it did for me. Even if it didn’t, never forget that you were meant to experience life with Jesus. He came for you to have life abundantly with you, to walk with you every single step – big or small. Because he loves you.